I was perusing last weeks' North Wales Weekly News and I came across a story concerning the North Wales representative rugby team. Not an uncommon sight within a North Walian paper but it it did make me stop and think. The team in question had been stood up for the second time in a year. Both jiltings happened because a South Walian county had failed to travel up to play them, last week Pembroke decided that they couldn't raise a team.
On a similar tack, Llangefni have been denied promotion to Divison 2, and threatened with demotion to a North Wales divison, because the South Walian teams in division 3 are unhappy about travelling up here for ONE game a season; The travel caused such a problem for South Walian teams that they frequently sent up weakened teams. This is despite the fact that Llangefni were willing to travel down south EIGHTEEN times during the season. It becomes even more infruriating because Llangefni have spent thousands on their facilites. When you add in the fact that "our" regional team, Llanelli, hasn't played up here for a couple of years this all leads me to wonder whether you can actually call Rugby the national sport of Wales.
It's patently clear that south Wales, sorry Welsh, rugby doesn't care about us. Comments from ex-internationals like JPR Williams reinforce this; they state that it's almost a waste of time developing North Walian rugby. Consider all of this together and it seems even more absurd that rugby claims the mantle of the national sport of Wales.
Myths are the cornerstone of any natioanl culture so if most people are questioned then Rugby will be one of the stereotypical images chosen to represent Wales. The truth is that it represents a part of Wales and not the whole. Wales, if it is anything, is not a part or fraction, it is a whole. Football is more representative; it has a truly national league and does actually play some intenationals in the North, even though the opponents are feeble.
Rugby on the other hand has no room for North Wales; no Northern clubs above Division 3, no intenationals held there, no regional games held there, no real desire to change the situation.
"Wait a minute!!" I hear you cry, "Don't people from North Wales travel down to Cardiff to watch the games". Yes, this is true. It is also true pubs in North Wales may be packed when Wales play in the 6 nations. If you delve a bit deeper into these points they start to unravel; Firstly, most people going down to Cardiff are connected to clubs, as this is the main way to obtain tickets, so will be interested in rugby anyway. Secondly, the pubs are only busy when Wales are doing well or playing England.
The second point leads to the conclusion that people are willing to ignore the obvious ambivilance towards North Wales to support a team that has a chance of beating England. In other words the team is Welsh and they are Welsh, ergo they support Wales like an involutary reflex.
When it come to supporting Wales at football, where there are North Walians in the team, the support come less readily. The fact that football has more of a national appeal in terms of the spread of clubs I would say that football should be regarded as the national sport but you won't hear many people say this, apart from football fans obviously.
Rugby, the "national" sport of Wales
